Escapees January-February 2024

“While giving our time we’ve made lasting friends, gained new skills, overcome challenges and learned more about ourselves. If I had one word to describe this, it would be ‘ful fi lling.’”

CONSIDER Camp Hosting or Volunteering By LESJONES #142800

and, more importantly, mental. Consider; taking a month or two off from traveling means no driving stress, no fuel costs, no campground fees and, it offers time to re fl ect, work or start a new favorite hobby. It also helps you to become familiar with the area in which you are staying. Most importantly, the satisfaction of giving back, learning new skills and meeting new people makes for a more satisfying lifestyle. Not to mention, it allows you the time to catch up on those doctor and dentist appointments. After many conversations with other RVers, we began to consider opportunities. But what kind? After four years, we’ve “worked” several times at different locations and with diverse roles. Some Positions to Consider Our fi rst experience was BIG LAGOON STATE PARK near Pensacola, Florida. Duties included site cleanup following visitor depar ture, cleaning bathrooms and answering questions from guests. Weekends were the busiest times of course, but our schedule allowed for plenty of free time. I even had enough free time to indulge myself as a

Could you see yourself learning to milk a cow, gathering warm, new ly laid eggs from the hen house, baking bread in a wood- fi redoven, rustling up a lost sheep, operating machinery or tending a vegetable garden? Wouldn’t anyone jump at the chance to do these things? These are only a few examples of what could lie in your RVing future as volunteer campers. W e hit the road in late April 2019 as newly minted, painfully inexperienced full-time RVers. At that time, our focus was about seeing what America had to offer, and it still is. It didn’t take long before we thought about using our free time, life skills and mobility for volunteering. Adding some structure, fi nding purpose and ful fi llment, not to mention padding our budget a little, is our reason behind this decision. The advantages of hosting are both fi nancial

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ESCAPEES Magazine January/February 2024